Capturing Bridgetown

1 Oct 2013

Bridgetown is one of Portland’s many names. Portland is divided into east and
west by the Willamette River, with 11 bridges crossing the water like arteries
to the heart of the city over a span of 10 miles. I recently declared a foray
onto photography, and one of my forays will be onto the
bridges of Portland. Since I live in downtown Portland near the waterfront, as
a project called Bridgetown, I will create a photograph of these 11 Portland
bridges.

Shooting

Today, I captured the scarlet-red Broadway Bridge and arching Fremont Bridge.
The weather was rough this morning, with water dumping onto the northwest, but
it subsided, allowing the city to dry to taste. As I was walking home, I felt
the spirit of the autumn. Fall is my favorite season, the temperature begins
to nibble, but not too roughly. Everyone begins to settle down after their
exciting summer. They layer up in autumn-colored attire, a blend of muted red,
olive green, orange, and brown. The mood turns from upbeat to a gentle mellow.
Today, I felt like photographing.

With the sun setting, I hopped on my skateboard and zipped for the water. I
live right in front of Fremont Bridge, which paints a glorious backdrop in the
sky when walking home north. I had taken pictures of Fremont Bridge before, but
that was then, and I am a better photographer now. The results from this shoot
were much better.

It took a couple of minutes to skate to the waterfront. Hello, Broadway Bridge,
you industrial bloody-red wonder. Cityscape shots at sunset usually call
for long exposures. Now I don’t yet have a tripod (one on the way), but I
usually find a way to improvise a steady shot.

Using the steel wires as a make-shift stablizer.

With some modern day MacGyver, I wedged my camera in-between the steel wires of
the railing. I took some shots at first lying stomach down on the ground, but
came up with better-angle shots this way. The bridge’s lights turned on after
several minutes, and I soon got a good shot I could work with. My final shot in
RAW, unprocessed form.

Unprocessed, raw shot of the Broadway Bridge.

Processing

Shooting in RAW format initially yields a particularly boring (yawn) image, but
contains a ton of image data under the surface that can be brought out in order
to make a polished photograph. It took about 30 minutes to process the photo
exactly the way I wanted it since I liked the shot. Behold, the
Broadway Bridge in processed form!

I turned around and shot (360-deg-no-scope) the Fremont Bridge while I was at
it. I think I could do better on another night, but I got a decent shot of that
sexy archy beast.